A reminder of how extreme the Republican Party has become, and a quick elaboration on Charley’s post with a bit of video that clarifies Kentucky Republican Senate nominee Rand Paul’s position that private businesses, like for example restaurants and movie theaters, should legally be allowed to exclude people based on their race (or, presumably, religion — no Jews, no Catholics — ethnicity — no Irish, no Poles — or whatever else they choose).
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Will Senator Scott Brown and candidate for Governor Tim Cahill, both of whom have also, like Paul, associated themselves with the Tea Party movement, support or denounce this position?
UPDATE: Paul’s campaign has subsequently added fuel to the fire by releasing a statement that says he will not vote to repeal the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — but does not renounce the position he stated above that private businesses should have the right to deny service to people based on race or whatever other characteristic they want.
FURTHER UPDATE (by David): Unable to handle the media firestorm, Paul (actually, a spokesperson: the candidate himself has yet to say it – Bob) has now abandoned his libertarian “principles” and stated, contrary to what he said in the clip above, that he actually does think the federal government can appropriately ban private businesses from discriminating. Awkwardly, this comes at the same time as a Kentucky blogger digs out a 2002 letter in which Paul makes it far clearer than on Maddow that he actually does (or did) think private businesses should be free from government regulation when it comes to whom they serve.
Should it be prohibited for private entities such as a church, bed and breakfast or retirement neighborhood that doesn’t want noisy children? Absolutely not.
Decisions concerning private property and associations should in a free society be unhindered. As a consequence, some associations will discriminate.
SNIP
A free society will abide unofficial, private discrimination – even when that means allowing hate-filled groups to exclude people based on the color of their skin.
…(on either side of a debate) that if A supports X and B supports X and A supports Y, then B is presumed to also support Y unless B denounces Y from the rooftops. In other words, just because a candidate from another state says something stupid/offensive doesn’t automatically mean that two MA pols agree even if they have targeted similar constituencies. As far as I know neither Brown nor Cahill have made similar public statements. Now if Brown goes to KY to campaign for Paul, that might be the time to ask whether Brown agrees with the sentiment expressed herein.
and that’s why I ask for an explanation from our friends at RMG who are toasting Dr. Paul.
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p>http://redmassgroup.com/diary/…
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p>http://redmassgroup.com/diary/…
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p>etc.
The fact is that Paul is being toasted by RMG on its front page, as linked.
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p>By all means, renounce his approval of segregation by private businesses on RMG if you disagree with it.
Rand Paul apparently feels that racism and private jim crow practices would have gone away soon enough if the law only stopped “institutional racism” by government, and doesn’t feel the need to stop the system of white supremacy any faster justified the government intrusion on individual rights. But the injustice and wrongness simply did justify government intrusion on individual rights in this case, due to the facts of history. This could be a great breakthrough, this could force the Tea Party to concede that some intrusions into their private freedoms are justified. Thank you Rachel Maddow.
… doesn’t go to KY to campaign for Paul. Is the question out of bounds until then?
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p>People went around declaring that the Brown election was an indicator for where the country was going? Isn’t Paul an indicator of some type?
when candidate A courts the support of racist nativist movement X, and candidates B also courts the support of movement X, and then candidate A says some nakedly racist things, I’m pretty sure it’s fair to ask candidate B whether he or she agrees with A’s views.
When I could walk two blocks from my house and be barred from a swimming pool that had the sign “No Jews, Negros or dogs”…I was eight years old and I remember it well.
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p>I guess that is the America Rand Paul, like a kind of Jim Crow Dr. Who, wants to transport us all back to?
I think it is a case of libertarian correctness, not racism. I think he’s sincere that he thinks it was bad and people should not be racist, people’s private businesses should not be racist. That’s what makes it troubling, he’s so committed to libertarian principles that he is willing to let people do terrible things to other people, even though he knows they are terrible things, while he merely says that he opposes them personally. It’s really the inverse of someone like John Kerry on abortion, committed to a politically correct principle even as he supposedly personally opposes it, but he claims that’s all he can do. It’s all he can do because his base rallies around a cheap easy pure principle of opposing all laws that tread on private individuals rights. They just both can’t see that other people are hurt by other people’s freedom.
Just remember, I can do it too!
There’s no demonizing here: the man explained himself with perfect clarity on national TV. He thinks private businesses should be allowed to serve whomever they want without the federal government telling them what they have to do (for example, install elevators so people in wheelchairs can get around), or who they have to serve. Indeed, that is the way things were in this country for most of its history.
So, then, what do you think about Rand Paul’s comments about the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Do you think it was governmental overreach? Never should have been passed in the first place? It may seem like “demonizing” to you, but this is what the guy really believes. No additional elaboration is needed beyond his very own words.
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p>Rand Paul: too extreme even for billxi?
A golden oldie from our Bill:
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p>or this
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As I have said elsewhere the Tea Party movement is fundamentally a racist one that is committed to advancing a neo-confederate white washing of US history. On that same link I posted Rand’s dad calling Lincoln a tyrant and lamenting that the war for ‘states rights’ ended with ‘big government’ winning. These guys are apologists for another era, an era one would have hoped would have been completely squashed by the election of an African American President but one that seems to be rearing its ugly head not just in spite of but because of that historical color barrier breaking down.
The tea party movement is a more mainstream manifestation of the same ugly undercurrent in American society that has given birth to racist, nativist, proto-fascist movements throughout our history, from the Know-Nothings and the original Klan, to the modern Klan, the anti-Communist Minutemen of the ’60s, the militia movement of the ’90s and the anti-immigrant Minutemen founded by Gilchrist and Simcox. Dave Neiwert’s The Eliminationists is indispensable reading on this subject.
Gilchrist can claim his movement is not racist all he wants because it has some Hispanic-American leadership, the downright truth is you do not see his paramilitary forces aligned on the Canadian border, and many of his supporters are openly eager to ‘shoot some Mexicans’ and carry very racially charged signs that disparage Latinos in general, not just illegal immigrants, during their rallies. The fact that he has appeared on a national radio show that is sponsored by Stormfront, a known neo-Confederate white supremacy group, is more proof that he is appealing, whether he knows it or not, to a racist group. Having interviewed him on my own radio show I can attest to the fact that the man is quite ignorant of what his own supporters are doing, so the ignorance defense can hold up. That said while its better to be stupid than racist, its still pretty damn bad to be stupid, especially when the movement you are leading is heavily armed.
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p>Frankly I have always thought right-wing terrorist groups pose a lot more danger than Al Qaeda and Napolitano was right to investigate them. The KKK, the militia’s, Aryan Nation, the Waco group, etc. have killed far more Americans than AQ and terrorize with much greater impunity and equally sinister aims. It is worse because they are home grown and wrap themselves in the flag that should stand for freedom, equality, and justice not hatred, violence, and terror.
I disagree that it is fundamentally racist, I’d say it is fundamentally about ideological libertarianism, based on selfish interest in being allowed to do everything they might want to do, which would include being racist and having segregated restaurants, apparently.
Here.
Here we go with another round of liberal backslapping on ending racism with a non-violent movement and federal laws. I haven’t followed his campaign, but in these snips Rand Paul is much closer to explaining the reality of racism than those who choose to believe that the civil rights act ended it.